The Odessa American from Odessa, Texas • 91

Duane Allen, the last of six children, was born on April 29, 1943, in the small Lamar County community of Taylor-town. Born into a musical family that often sang in church, Duane started singing almost as soon as he was talking. He broadened his musical experience at Paris Junior College, which honored Allen this fall as a distinguished alumnus, and at East Texas State University. After serving as an Assembly of God minister of music, singing with various gospel groups and directing the "Songs of Inspiration" program for a Paris radio station, he joined the nationally-known Prophets Quartet in 1965. One year later he joined the Oak Ridge Boys.

But it wasn't until 1977, with the release of Y'all Come Back Saloon that the Oak Ridge Boys, no longer a gospel group, started attracting national attention. Perseverance paid off for Duane Allen, Joe Bonsall of Philadelphia, William Lee Golden of Alabama and Richard Sterban of New Jersey. (All four now live in the Nashville, area.) 'The day after I graduated from high school I moved to Paris," Allen recalls. "I wanted to get off the farm because I felt like I could not find my musical career there in the cotton rows. I sang as loud as I could and nobody would musician, have two children.

"I try to let them work hand-in-hand together because my family has been with me all through my Oak Ridge career. And they don't plan to leave and neither do I plan to leave them or the Oak Ridge Boys," he asserts. Success in the music world has allowed Allen and the Oaks to develop other business interests, including publishing, recording, radio management and real estate. In addition, the group actively supports child abuse prevention and awareness programs. This year they were selected as the 1985 Honorary Chairmen of the National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse.

Songs like Thank God for Kids reflect the group's love for children and their positive, wholesome outlook on life. "The Oak Ridge Boys are steeped in tradition," Allen explains. 'We try to record the best material; we try to do the best television shows; and we try to keep our show the best on the road not compared to anybody else, but compared to what we've done before," he says. "We plan to strive to get it better and continue improving our group. Yet with aD the hit songs and awards, Allen's greatest joys continue to come from the simple pleasures' of home, the respect of his peers and the ambiance 'X 1 'V I (i I The Oak Ridge Boys, 1966 of a state he loves.

"You meet people from Texas and they have a feeling about them. I wish I could explain it, but I'm just happy that I feel it," he says. "Texans are warm, hard-working people. I think anybody that has worked hard for what they've achieved always understands where it came from and that there were other people involved getting you to that. "Learning to respect those parts is what I appreciate about being from Texas because I learned that here." And was in Texas that Duane Allen developed an Today, thousands are listening to one of the most popular groups in the business.

At last count they had produced nine gold albums and two platinum albums, with the 1981 single Elvira taking top honors as the group's most popular song. It is a competitive industry, though, and record companies are more interested in tomorrow than yesterday. The Oak Ridge Boys are ready. "We're working on a new album right now and we have got some songs that are just fabulous the best songs we've ever had," Allen says. "That's the most exciting thing that can happen to me in my career is to have hit songs.

All the rest stacks up after that. "I don't have any other goals that I haven't reached. I reached all my goals probably 10 years ago," comments Allen, a collector of antique automobiles. "I don't compare my family with my work, but the two most important things in my life are the Oak Ridge Boys and my family. And I don't put one above the other." Duane and his wife, Norah Lee, also a professional rjrU i 4 i I I ii- I ti Texas Weekly MagaaneNov.

17, 1985.